I ran through both my and my wife's returns using MFS filing status. As it turns out, we would be worse off with this status (as predicted by the resident experts). We would owe the IRS around $2500 instead of $1500 and get less of a refund from the state.

Thanks for your input, irasmilo and ptheland! It would appear that the filing status calculator/worksheet in the H&R Block software is worse than worthless - it is quite misleading!